rises<\/a> steadily.<\/p>\nThe city\u2019s budget crisis has limited how aggressively San Diego can tackle upgrading dangerous intersections, including ones near schools.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, city Transportation Department officials said city traffic engineers reviewed the locations identified by the school district and entered each school\u2019s requests into the city\u2019s traffic service request system for evaluation.<\/p>\n
They said roughly 40% of those evaluations have been completed and another 40% have begun. They did not reveal the results of the completed evaluations.<\/p>\n
\u201cStaff have been actively working through those requests and evaluating each location to determine whether improvements can be made and what treatments may be appropriate,\u201d the Transportation Department said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n
They said 22 safety requests made by San Diego Unified were determined to be the responsibility of the school district.<\/p>\n
Some critics say city officials don\u2019t work closely enough with school officials when the city plans upgrades to intersections and pedestrian infrastructure near schools.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Raul Campillo, whose district includes the site of the Pershing Middle School crash, vowed Tuesday to work closely with school district officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorking alongside our school district and the community, we must continue improving dangerous intersections and high-traffic areas, especially those near our schools,\u201d Campillo said. \u201cI am committed to working closely with the school district, parents and community partners to make sure every child in my district and across our city can safely walk or ride to and from school.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 40% of the safety requests from campus principals come from within Council District 2, which spans from Clairemont to Point Loma, or Council District 4, which includes much of southeastern San Diego.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Henry Foster, who represents District 4, said Tuesday that the San Diego Unified report is a call to action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report makes it clear that there is more work to do and that the city must do a better job prioritizing safe routes for students,\u201d Foster said. \u201cThat is why I brought the report to the attention of the mayor\u2019s office and the Transportation Department.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foster said it\u2019s crucial to have recommendations and suggestions directly from campus principals who thoroughly understand what\u2019s happening near their schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now have clear, firsthand information from our school principals, and I am going to push to turn this information into safer routes for students across District 4,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Circulate Planning and Policy, a local advocacy group for pedestrian safety, praised the new report Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraffic safety is public safety \u2014 our communities need to be places where children feel safe walking and biking to school,\u201d said Aria Grossman, Circulate\u2019s policy manager. \u201cAs this report demonstrates, there is much more work that needs to be done to get us there. Circulate is glad to see the superintendent making this progress a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sut-l-schools-danger-003.jpg\")
On Tuesday, July 21, 2026, a car heads up the hill on Dusk Drive, passing William Penn Elementary.\u00a0 (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
In the new San Diego Unified report, the top three priority areas identified by principals include the need for signage, school zones, crosswalks, parking and regulatory signs at 23.5%; speed control, speed bumps and slow-down signage at 19.3%; and pedestrian safety, flashing lights and signal upgrades at crosswalks at 19%.<\/p>\n
An example of a requested upgrade includes Ocean Beach Elementary asking for 16 \u201cstate law\u201d crosswalk signs, four speed-reader devices, \u201cno parking \u2014 bus zone\u201d signs and three new crosswalks with flashing lights.<\/p>\n
At Penn Elementary in Paradise Hills, the principal is requesting several new signs and six new speed bumps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local school leaders are pressing San Diego city officials to prioritize improving safety near campuses, including more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[15,181,23,205,100,13,74,76,75,1696,1967],"class_list":["post-407876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sut-l-schools-danger-004.jpg\")
On Tuesday, July 21, 2026, drivers steer their cars down the hill on Dusk Drive, passing William Penn Elementary \u2014 one of the schools singled out by San Diego Unified School District as in dire need of safety upgrades like speed bumps, new crosswalks, better signage and more.\u00a0 (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n